An uneasy calm descended on Rivers State yesterday as news filtered in from Abuja about the nullification of the April election of Mr. Nyesom Wike of the PDP as governor of the state.
The Justice Mohammed Ambrosa-led election petitions tribunal ordered a fresh election within 90 days.
The PDP and Wike have decided to contest the decision at the Court of Appeal.
The news sparked wild jubilations among All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders and their supporters especially in Port Harcourt.
They began shouting ‘Change’, the party’s slogan in the last elections.
In no time hundreds of them had massed at the party’s governorship candidate’s Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside’s Greater Together Campaign Organisation’s office on Forces Avenue, old Government Reservation Area (GRA) in the state capital for celebration.
Members of the PDP also had their own celebration, taking consolation in the fact that Wike will remain governor for now having decided to appeal over the tribunal’s verdict.
The police beefed up security around the state to ensure that the prevailing peace was not breached.
The spokesperson of the command, Grace Iringe-Koko, said in Port Harcourt that all was calm in the state.
“We have not recorded any incidents and the state is calm. Police is on top of the situation,” she said.
Mr. Wike who had apparently planned a triumphant return to Port Harcourt from Abuja if the verdict had gone in his favour flew home last night all the same, vowing never to cave in to what he called ungodly political gang-up against him in Abuja.
He likened yesterday’s judgement to a lower court overruling a superior court which is unknown to law.
Addressing his supporters who thronged the Port Harcourt International Airport to welcome him back from Abuja, Wike urged them to remain peaceful as the tribunal’s judgment was simply the verdict of man which will give way to God’s verdict.
He said though by his training he is not expected to criticise a judge, the State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal’s judgement negated earlier ones given by the same tribunal wherein it upheld his election in petitions filed by the Labour Party and the Social Democratic Party, only to make.
Post a Comment
Post a Comment